A piezoelectric energy harvester based on internal resonance

Abstract: A vibration-based energy harvester is essentially a resonator working in a limited frequency range. To increase the working frequency range is a challenging problem. This paper reveals a novel possibility for enhancing energy harvesting via internal resonance. An internal resonance energy harvester is proposed. The excitation is successively assumed as the Gaussian white noise, the colored noise defined by a second-order filter, the narrow-band noise, and exponentially correlated noise. The corresponding averaged root-mean-square output voltages are computed. Numerical results demonstrate that the internal resonance increases the operating bandwidth and the output voltage. Graphical Abstract: Averaged root-mean-square voltage via standard deviation of white noise for five designs [Figure not available: see fulltext.]